Connected lighting systems are a class of lighting systems comprising networked illumination sources, preferably connected via a wireless network so that the illumination sources are wirelessly controllable. These illumination sources can be controlled from various user interfaces, such as smartphone and tablet applications, via internet services, or via connected physical devices such as sensors and switches. The behaviour that can be assigned to a connected lighting system offers more opportunities than traditional lighting systems. For an end-user it is possible to specify how he or she wants his or her lighting system to behave. It is even possible to specify different forms of behaviour at different moments in time. In other words the user is now able to use his or her lighting system not only for illumination or atmosphere creation but as a way to support or enhance any other activities happing in the home environment or online, e.g. for entertainment, security, notifications, etc.
One of the most common usages of coloured connected lighting is to enhance people's daily activities. For instance, additional functionality now becomes possible in other domains such as smart homes and entertainment. E.g. it is known to add matching dynamic coloured light around a television to enhance the experience of watching TV and movies.
Furthermore, connected lighting can also be used to enhance the gameplay of video games (computer games) such as console games, arcade games, or games played on desktop or laptop computers. Now, with connected lighting systems becoming more commonplace in the home, these types of immersive experiences can even be obtained without the need to buy a dedicated entertainment lighting system. Further, it has become possible to not only create dynamic lighting near the TV or gaming screen but also around a user. Thus by connecting the lighting system to a gaming system, it is possible to create a more immersive and engaging gaming experience through the use of dynamic coloured lighting.
One of the challenges in this area is how to extract the necessary features from the game in order to render an accompanying light effect. In one known example, colours near the edges of the video frame are analysed and then these are used to create an effect to be rendered through the ambient lighting in the room. Another option is to provide a gaming SDK for the lighting system, which ties in with a game engine (e.g. Unity) and receives direct commands such as explosion, points earned, game over, etc., that cause control of one or more lamps or luminaires to emit a specified light effect. This requires game developers to develop specifically for the lighting system in question. I.e. the game developer has to use a scripting language to explicitly script a corresponding lighting effect into the game for every such event that may occur, to be triggered as soon as an event has occurred.